The Football Forecast

Arsenal v PSG: The fight for top spot

With both sides comfortably through to the next round, a win on Wednesday would see either side gain the chance to finish top. A win here would take Arsenal a step closer to finishing top of their group for the first time since the 2011-12 season.

Arsenal have finished second in their group for the past four seasons and have often come up short after being forced to play some of Europe’s biggest hitters, in the form of Barcelona and Bayern Munich (AS Monaco is debatable) in the Last 16. Having said that, as it stands, should Arsenal finish top, they could still face teams such as Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the next round as both currently sit behind Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund in their respective groups. It’s somewhat funny that Arsenal could end up facing the likes of these teams should they finish top, given that fans and pundits alike have spoken about how important it is to finish top of the group.

Not to get too ahead of myself though, let’s focus on the game itself. Whilst Arsenal have no new injury worries, I’d like to see Olivier Giroud come in for Sanchez, as I said in my last post. This is to avoid a situation where Sanchez ends up running himself into the ground and ends up being on the sidelines of a lengthy amount of time. Also, to fill in for Bellerin, I’d prefer to see Gabriel, rather than Jenkinson, as I trust Gabriel. Having said that, should Jenkinson start, I’d like to see what he’ll do show that he merits his place and he deserves to be at a club such as Arsenal. Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger has stated that Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey haven’t trained but should be able to be fit for tomorrow’s match.

Wenger has also said that he is pleased to have qualified with two matches to spare and when asked whether Giroud would start against, he responded by saying that he hasn’t decided yet but Giroud would be starting some games just like everyone else. David Ospina also spoke to the media and has said that the potential PSG have will be shown as he doesn’t think they’ve always been pushing as hard as they could to win their league matches.